THIS APOLOGY AND RETRACTION IS GIVEN BY ALTAF HUSSAIN, QASIM ALI RAZA AND THE MQM

Posted on: 1/8/2019 1

THIS APOLOGY AND RETRACTION IS GIVEN BY ALTAF HUSSAIN, QASIM ALI RAZA AND THE MQM

On the 30th of October 2017, a press conference was held at the International Secretariat of the MQM. The press conference was addressed by the MQM leaders Nadeem Nusrat, Saleem Danish and Qasim Ali Raza (“Mr Raza”) amongst others.

During the said press conference Mr Raza (acting for himself, the MQM and leadership) made various wholly false, fabricated, malicious, offensive and highly defamatory statements and allegations against Mr Murtaza Ali Shah (the London lead reporter for Jang Group of Newspapers (The News & Jang)), his family, Geo News and others including wholly false allegations of blackmail, fabricating and publishing bogus stories, being corrupt and of chauvinistic mindset (jointly and severally the “Allegations”). It was further falsely alleged that Mr Murtaza Ali Shah has been involved in running media trial of the MQM.

Mr Murtaza Ali Shah commenced defamation proceedings against Mr Altaf Hussain and Mr Raza and has been communicating with us through his lawyer as part of his defamation claim.

Following that, we conducted our own investigations to the allegations made and the subsequent complaint by Mr Murtaza Ali Shah. We have found NO evidence whatsoever against Mr Murtaza Ali Shah to substantiate any of the Allegations and we can report the Allegations were and are wholly false, fabricated, baseless, offensive, devoid of any merit and therefor highly defamatory of Mr Murtaza Ali Shah.

Accordingly, we unreservedly and sincerely apologise to Mr Shah for the false Allegations that were regrettably made at the press conference (stated above) and also broadcast from our office through our online platforms. We are extremely sorry for any harm and/or distress that was caused to Mr Murtaza Ali Shah, his family and/or the Jang Group and/or Geo News.

We are happy to clarify and confirm that Mr Murtaza Ali Shah is a highly respected professional journalist with the highest integrity and reputation.

We have undertaken to remove all media links carrying these Allegations from our media platforms and not to repeat them again.

We have come to an out of court settlement (as regards apology, costs and damages) which is agreed in the strictest of confidence, without any public knowledge.